


How to Embrace a Swamp Creature

by spacediino



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Mechanic Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 04:13:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30116973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacediino/pseuds/spacediino
Summary: Winchester and Son doesn't run internationally, but John puts Dean on a plane to England anyway and Dean goes, because the car he's being sent to fix is his car, the one the bank took when John couldn't pay their bills, the one Dean and his little brother lived out of during those years after their mom's death where John couldn't stay in place.In the little English town where the Chevy Impala lives, there's also a strange, wonderful man named Castiel, with a past of his own to contend with.There's a lot of coffee, a lot of fixing cars, not enough talking, but quite a bit of love.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is 41k and yes, my master's thesis is due soon, what's your question?
> 
> If your question is, is this finished? the answer is yes, I'm gonna upload a new chapter every week.

**100 DAYS**

It’s an unfamiliar scene.

“I’m at the airport, Sammy,” he says, “move your bangs from your ears and listen.”

His cell-phone is one of the ones with the buttons, because he never feels older than when he tries to write a text message or look at pictures on Charlie’s touch screen one, which means he can’t actually see the face his brother is making. He can imagine it very clearly.

“Why the _hell_ are you at the airport right now?” Sam asks, voice tinny and sharp.

Dean keeps scanning the signs hanging from the ceiling, looking for a gate that doesn’t seem to fucking exist. “It’s just for a job,” he says, getting out of the way of an onslaught of businessmen.

“Why would you need to get on a– Dean, I really need more information here.”

Dean sighs, “I’m going to England for a job,” he starts, powering right through Sam’s incredulous repetition of _’England?!’_ “Because dad can’t leave the shop for that long.”

“Since when does Winchester and Son run internationally?”

The gate finally comes into view. The only empty spot to sit is next to a family of four. He switches his phone to the other ear and shoves his duffel bag under the seat with his foot.

“It’s a really big job. You remember dad’s old friend, Jimmy Talbot?”

“Yeah, actually,” Sam says, “he used to babysit us, right?”

On Dean’s left, a small child with massive plastic sunglasses is trying to get his attention.

“Well he got filthy rich on horses or something and moved to England. Got an antique car collection, and he called up dad a couple of days ago cause he totalled a car and doesn’t trust any of the Brits to touch it.”

“That’s insane,” Sam says, “where does dad get off sending you halfway across the world to fix a car for some rich old friend–“

“He couldn’t do it himself, could he?” Dean snaps, “and someone has to take care of the shop–“

“Yeah, right.” Sam is getting that harsh note in his voice that Dean hates, the one he only gets when they’re talking about John, that makes Dean feel gross and guilty and ashamed. “He hasn’t done real work with that shop for years and you know it. The only reason he’s in business is because you work your fingers raw on the cars _and_ cover his ass with the financials–“

“Sam, for fuck–“ he glances at the little girl next to him, who’s still staring with wide-eyed attention, “For christ’s sake, I’m not having this discussion with you right now–“

“No, Dean,” Sam is raising his voice now, “this is ridiculous, it’s bad enough he’s got you under his thumb in Nebraska – don’t say he doesn’t! You shrink about a foot when he comes into the room – now he’s sending you out of the country because some old friend waved cash in his face? I’m gonna call him, I swear to–“

“Sam,” Dean interrupts, rubbing his face with his free hand, “it’s the Impala, alright?”

There’s a long pause. The girl on his left is pulling on the arm of his jacket, her mother gently trying to lift her away and throwing Dean four of five different apologetic faces. He smiles back at her quickly.

“What?” Sam says finally.

“Yeah, it’s– He bought it off the impound lot, turns out. Offered dad to buy it back off him but he refused, so.”

“Wait, what?” Sam says again.

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose, “Talbot bought it, dad didn’t want it back, so he shipped it overseas with him when he moved, now he’s totalled it and I’m going over to fix it.”

“It’s our car?” Sam asks, his voice strange and low.

“Yeah,” Dean says, simply. “We’re boarding, I gotta go. I’ll call you when I land, okay?”

“Wait, Dean–“

“Say hi to Eileen for me.” He hangs up and sinks low into the plastic seat and settles in to wait, trying to ignore Sam’s voice ringing in his ears.

–––––

At Heathrow, Dean has to sit with his head between his knees for a couple of long minutes, leaning against an unassuming brick wall next to an ad about taxi-services. Around him, people rush towards baggage claim. Dean doesn’t have any baggage to claim, he just has his duffel. A couple of changes of clothes, his phone charger, a couple of paperbacks. It’s almost everything he owns.

He calls Sam again.

“Sorry, am I interrupting dinner?” He asks at the clattering background noise.

“It’s fine,” Sam says, “listen–“

“No, come on, I just got off the flight, I’m trying not to vomit everywhere, can we just not–“

“Dean, this is important.”

“Ah, shit,” Dean mutters. He knows that voice, the ’ooh, I’m a lawyer, I have power in a court of law’-voice that he’ll never, ever get used to.

“You’re going to be there a while, right?”

Dean can feel himself frowning, “yeah…” he says. “Two months, at least.”

“Well, Eileen and I had a chat about it and we think this might be a good opportunity for you.”

“Now hold on, you were just saying–“

“Yeah, yeah, but listen. The last five years all you’ve done is work in dad’s shop, pay dad’s bills, clean up his messes. This is gonna be the first time maybe ever that you’re away from him.”

“Jesus,” Dean hisses, “I’m not some fucking prisoner.”

“You’re gonna be in a different country, around different people, it’s a change of pace and we think that might be what you need.”

Dean is shaking his head. He can’t pinpoint the feeling in his stomach. Stress? Anger?

“You don’t have to stay in Nebraska–“

“I like Nebraska.” He doesn’t like how grumpy he sounds, like a child.

“–You can do anything. You’re smart, and capable, and you have dreams. Don’t tell me you don’t.”

“Sam–“

“Don’t tell me you don’t.” Something else is in his voice now, something small. There’s no background clatter anymore, just Sam’s voice on the other end, “I’m the one you whispered them to when you couldn’t sleep at night.”

There’s no response Dean can make.

“I’m not trying to–“ Sam says, “I know I nag. I just want you to do something for yourself. Try things. Enjoy things.”

“I’ll be working,” Dean says.

“Not all day.”

“Yeah, I guess. Look, Talbot sent someone to pick me up, I should–“

“Okay, yeah, of course. Uh, say hello from me?”

“I will.” Dean hangs up the phone, picks himself off the ground, and goes towards the exit.

––––

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

Talbot’s driver is wearing a tuxedo. He looks like a butler from a period drama. Dean might think this was just the way British people dressed except people around him are throwing them weird glances, pausing on the way to their cars.

“I mean I knew Talbot was loaded, but seriously?” He adds, scanning the man up and down: late fifties, long faced, wearing _white gloves_.

“Does sir have all his luggage?” The driver asks him, voice slow and drawling.

Dean looks down at himself. His jeans are freshly cleaned but oil-stained, and his duffel suddenly looked grimy and sad, sunken in on itself. He shrugs, his leather jacket creaking. “This is all I got.”

“If you’ll follow me, Mr. Winchester.”

Dean doesn’t follow him, he shifts from foot to foot.

“Don’t you need to see my license or something?”

The driver raises an eyebrow. “Why would that be, sir?”

Dean feels like writing ’condescending’ in capital letters across the dude’s forehead. “So you know you’re not just picking up some random guy?”

The butler gives a sigh, as if Dean is in fact the most terrible nuisance he’s ever had the misfortune of having to deal with. “Not to worry, Mr. Talbot’s description was sufficient.”

Dean follows him towards the parking lot, fairly sure he’s just been insulted.

“I’m going to get oil on the limo,” he mutters to himself.

It’s not raining, but it isn’t not raining either. The sky is a tense grey, looking as if it has decided to rain but then become so distracted by the sight of a jeans-wearing American walking next to an extremely well-dressed posh British butler-sort that it hadn’t managed to follow through on the action. Dean is annoyed by it. It’s meant to be June, but he’s almost shivering, and his skin feels clammy under his collar.

“You know,” he says, as they walk past car after car and his stomach sinks further and further, “I was kidding when I said about the limo. There’s not actually a limo, right?”

The guy doesn’t answer. He does stop suddenly in front of a car that makes Dean’s jaw drop. He laughs nervously.

“You are kidding me, right?”

Nothing.

“But this is a… This is a Mercedes-Benz 600. Did you know that? This is the Pullman. _Elvis_ had one of these!” He’s pointing at it, as if he’s expecting the driver to smack himself on the forehead and move right on to another, less outrageous, car. Instead, he takes the duffel right out of Dean’s hand, puts it in the trunk, and opens the back door for him.

When Dean makes no movement to get into the car, the driver sighs heavily.

“Mr. Talbot made sure the car was stocked with some of his finest Scottish whiskey, if that helps?”

Dean laughs right out loud. “Alright, you know what, that does help.” He gets in the car.

Between the seats, a compartment opens to reveal several whiskey glasses, a bottle on ice, and a bowl of peanuts.

“Okay,” he says, “warming up to the limo.”

As the driver takes them away from the airport and on to the M25, Dean pours himself a glass, grabs a handful of peanuts, and leans close to the window. He’s never been outside the US before, that he knows. He thinks he remembers one time in the middle of the night, Sam asleep in the back seat, John swearing and seething because they’d accidentally driven across the border into Canada. He’d been wanting to keep going, but kept his mouth shut, pressing his nose to the glass to stare at the passing trees which had absolutely nothing special about them except for being someplace _else_.

This countryside passes them in much the same way. Fields and houses and farms and a very lot of green. Some of the churning nausea is leaving his stomach now, soothed by the drink. He leans forward, elbows on the edge of the divider between driver and backseat.

“What’s your name?” He asks.

The side of the driver’s mouth pulls down slightly. “Eames, sir.”

He nods, “Eames, ’aight. Do you know anything about this car I’m here to fix? Have you seen it?”

“Yes, sir. If I may be so bold, I rather thought it beyond saving.”

Dean grimaces, “that bad, huh?”

Eames doesn’t elaborate. When they turn off the M25 and onto winding countryside roads, when the roar of traffic fades away and all he can hear is the hum of the engine, he closes his eyes for a moment and wonders when the last time it was that he went driving, just for the hell of it. Just for the feeling of it. He can’t remember.

He opens his eyes again when the car turns onto gravel. They’re making their way down an avenue lined with trees, at the end of which sits a massive, sprawling manor. It’s huge, ivy-covered grey stone and massive windows reflecting the dark sky. When they pass through the ornate steel gates and slowly turn around the circular driveway leading up to the front steps, he wonders if he’s ever seen anything like it outside of films. What the hell is he doing here? He doesn’t fit in to a place like this, he doesn’t even watch the kinds of films that take place in places like this. He certainly never watched Pride and Prejudice late one TV one night because he was drunk and a little sad and couldn’t find the remote.

They pull to a stop and Eames immediately steps out and opens Dean’s door for him.

“Fucking hell, Talbot,” he mutters, because it feels appropriate. The raked gravel crunches under his feet as he gets out, and he digs around a bit with his toes while Eames gets his bag out of the trunk, messing up the smooth lines mostly out of spite, but a little because he feels like a kid with dirty hands in a room full of shiny objects: big and clumsy and unwanted.

“If sir will follow me?” Eames drawls, looking pointedly at where Dean has dug into the dirt under the gravel with his foot.

The front door opens, and the strangeness of the situation is not helped by the strangeness of the man who steps out.

Jimmy Talbot limps out onto the front steps, right foot in a walking cast, ornate wooden cane supporting his weight, grinning from ear to ear.

“Well pull me backwards on a horse and call me Nancy! If it isn’t Dean Winchester!”

The grin is the same one Dean knows from his adolescence, but very little else is. He looks older, sure, it’s been more than ten years since they saw each other last, but Dean knows Jimmy as John Winchester’s friend, who wears torn jeans and yesterday’s wife-beater and who’s missing a tooth, he doesn’t know this man in the nice suit, whose American accent lilts in odd ways, who is clean-shaven and sober and wearing delicate round spectacles.

“James Talbot,” Dean says, almost as if he’s ensuring himself. “Blink twice if you need me to get you out of here.”

Talbot starts to hobble down the stairs, and Eames moves quickly to his side, trying to stabilise him.

“Oh, get off,” Talbot complains, waving at Eames with his cane, “I’m perfectly capable–“ He reaches the bottom and pulls Dean right into a hug, both arms tight around his torso.

Dean pats him awkwardly on the back.

“John Winchester’s boy, you haven’t changed a bit.” Talbot pulls back to look at him, “It’s good to see you, kid.”

“You too, Talbot.” And it is, strangely. Jimmy Talbot always did affect his surroundings like a punch affects a face: suddenly and with lasting effects, and something about his smile makes Dean think of a too big leather jacket, Sammy’s hand in his, and the smell of grease and cigarette smoke. “Though I have to say, from where I’m standing, a lot has changed. Man, what are you wearing?” Dean grins, “The mansion I kinda get, but what happened to your jeans? Why are you wearing glasses from the eighteenth century?”

Talbot’s hand goes to his chest, indignantly, “It’s a _suit_ , Winchester. It’s called _class_. Not that I’d expect a Winchester to know anything about it.”

Dean shakes his head, “I need a drink.”

"That, my boy,” he puts an arm around Dean and steers him towards the steps, “we can arrange. Eames! Take the gentleman’s luggage to his suite, thank you very much!”

“Do you have more whiskey?” Dean asks.

“We have everything.”

They do, indeed, have everything. Talbot leads him along, hobbling happily, through the massive entrance hall with a shining chandelier, into a restaurant-level kitchen, through a wooden door and down a staircase into what is very obviously a wine cellar. Except it’s not so much a wine cellar as it is a jungle of booze.

“Hole fuck, Talbot.”

“I know, Dean.”

“Holy _fuck_ , Talbot.”

“Call me Jimmy.”

Rows upon rows of bottles line the walls on either side of them, and in front of them shelves upon shelves. It’s an entire basement full of alcohol. Talbot leads him along the shelves and there, somewhere in the middle of it all, sits an island of armchairs and couches and, in the centre, a poker table.

Dean shakes his head. “Man, what did bars ever do to you?”

“They made fun of my reading glasses.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Talbot waves him off. “Here’s Eames with food!”

Eames rounds the corner with a tray of sandwiches, and Dean sinks down in a maroon leather armchair. Talbot sits in the one next to him, lifting his cast up on a matching foot rest, and pours Dean a glass of something golden. Eames places the tray between them, and quickly leaves again.

Dean gestures to Talbot’s foot, “that have anything to do with what you did to that poor car I’m here to fix?”

“You just arrived, let’s not talk business. I want to hear everything,” Talbot says, leaning forward, “what have you been up to? How long has it been? What are you now, nineteen?”

“Dude, I’m twenty-eight.”

Talbot clutches imaginary pearls, “you grow up so fast.”

“And don’t take this the wrong way,” Dean says, picking up a sandwich, “but you grew up weird.”

Talbot aims a thumb in the general direction Eames left in, “you spend ten years with that guy and then tell me what your defence mechanism is.”

Despite himself, Dean is pretty charmed. “I spent half an hour with him, I kind of get it.”

“You have to be out of college by now, then, what did you study?”

“Please, do I look like a college graduate to you?”

Talbot lowers his sandwich, “you didn’t go to college?” He seems uncharacteristically worried.

“Barely finished high school, us Winchesters aren’t the brainy sort.”

Talbot side-eyes him, “John told me Sam was off at law school in California.”

Dean sits up, “yeah, he’s gonna change the fucking world, that kid. He got this girl too, Eileen, she’s incredible, and they’re absolutely gone for each other. Sam’s great, but that’s not the Winchester blood, believe me.”

Talbot hums.

“What?”

“Nothing, just… You did always steal his books.”

Dean takes a big sip, “what are you talking about?”

“When you were little,” he demonstrates by putting his thumb and forefinger very close together, “you made it seem like you did it to tease him but then you hid in your closet to read them.”

Dean doesn’t remember any of that. Certainly not a slim volume called _Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me_.

“Taken over your dad’s shop then?” Talbot asks.

“No, but I work there.”

“I would have thought your dad would move on by now, seeing as he ain’t the sort to stick around anywhere too long.”

“He’s also not the type to give up on things.”

Talbot gives a thoughtful hum.

“So how about that car, huh?” Dean prompts.

–––––

When Dean was fourteen, he drove Sam to school for the first time. Sam had still been short back then, still the ’little’ part of little brother, and had let Dean ruffle his hair before he left the car to go to friends he would have to remake and classes he would have to retake another hundred times, before Dean drove on to find something, anything, that could earn him some money.

Dean had been twelve when he drank his first beer, sitting on the hood, his dad beside him and the sun beating down on the top of his head. He had coughed and wanted to spit it out, cold and foamy and bitter, but he had forced it down and his dad had grinned at him.

He was eleven the first time he kissed someone. They hid behind the car on the far side of the motel, and she pressed her lips to his just for a second, before she ran off, giggling. They’d left the state the next day.

When he was nine, he fixed her for the first time. There was a problem with the anti-freeze, and to this day he remembers every scrape of metal against his knuckles, every heavy tool, every finger of his dad’s hand pressing down on his shoulder. More clearly than anything, he remembers the pride he felt when they drove on. Pride that he had fixed her, he had made her well again.

That night, he’d shared that feeling with Sam, where they lay in the backseat watching the street lights pass. Sam had wondered, innocently, if magic was real and Dean thought for a long time and then he said that people often didn’t understand magic. People thought it was an unexplainable thing that only existed in other worlds, but they were wrong, because magic surrounded them all the time.

“Listen, Sammy,” he said, “what do you hear?”

“The engine?”

“That’s right. The engine. The engine is made up out of all these tiny little parts that do _nothing_ on their own but when you put them together in the right way they make that noise, and they make the car move. You see, Sammy? Like we're moving right now? Really really fast, right? You can't run this fast, but an engine can, because of all those little parts that do nothing. Isn't that magic, Sam?”

Sam had been quiet for a long time, and Dean thought he’d fallen asleep, but then he said “cheetahs can run this fast.”

“Well,” Dean said, “cheetahs are magic too. Go to sleep.”

He is twenty-eight when John calls him out from under the belly of a Porsche and tells him there’s a car that needs fixing, when he realises it’s this car.

Dean hasn’t cried many times in his life, and that he can remember he hasn’t done it sober. He’s not going to now either. There’s no reason to. But he grips the roof of the Impala with both hands and bows his head, clenching his jaw shut and swallowing, swallowing, swallowing. He doesn’t cry, but he wishes that he never came here, that he was home where things make sense.

––––

“Dean…? Do you know what time it is? Are you okay?” Sam’s voice is bleary with sleep and confusion. Dean’s breaks on the first try, so he tries again.

“Hey, Sam.”

He hears the rule of sheets, a murmur in the background, “what’s wrong? What happened?”

“Nothing,” he says, hating the thickness in his throat and the heat in his dry eyes. He’s just tired. “I just wanted to let you know I’m at Talbot’s place, sorry, I should have checked the time over there first.”

“Oh,” Sam says, “Oh, okay, uhm. That’s good! How’s Talbot? Did you see the car?”

He tries to laugh, but fails. She’s solid against his back. More solid than the concrete of the garage beneath him, or any of the other, gleaming cars lining the space. “Yeah, Talbot’s weird, man, like. I swear he wasn’t this weird when we were kids.”

Sam chuckles, “I don’t know, he was always a little strange, we never got a single one of his jokes.”

“Yeah, but now he wears these little glasses now, like Dumbledore-glasses.”

“He wears _what?_ Dude, you could have told me you were going back in time, I would have come with!”

The beginning of a smile tugs at him, “he lives in this _mansion_ , he has a hundred cars, including the _Pullman_ , and this driver or butler or, I don’t know, servant named _Eames_ who keeps calling me sir.”

“He calls _you_ sir? He’s not getting paid enough.”

“He probably gets more in a week than I do in a year. You should see this place.”

Sam laughs and doesn’t say ’you don’t get paid enough’. Dean presses the phone close to his ear, grateful. As far as sympathy goes, that’s pretty nice.

“And the car?”

Dean taps his fingers against the floor, “not as bad as I feared, I guess. The left side doors are all messed up, and she was definitely on fire for a little bit. But the interior is salvageable. It’s gonna take a fuckton of parts and a small fortune but… I can fix her.”

“That’s awesome, Dean,” Sam says, “It must be so weird for you, I can’t imagine…” He trails off and Dean doesn’t have any words to fill in for him. “Still think it’ll take two months?”

“At least,” Dean says, “if I work day and night I could do it in six weeks but… Talbot has some pretty amazing cars and he said I got free range to drive them whenever I want, so. It’ll take the time it takes.”

Sam’s answer is a little too soft, but it doesn’t hurt like it usually does. “That’s great, Dean. I’m really happy.”

Sam hangs up, because it’s two am in California, and Dean goes to find Talbot.

He finds him in the kitchen, harassing Eames.

“It’s four in the morning for me, man,” he says, “I have to crash.”

Talbot shows him to his room on the third floor, up two sets of winding staircases, which has a sitting area, an open fireplace, five windows, and en-suite bathroom, a walk in closet where his duffel bag sits looking overwhelmed, a surround system with an iPhone docking station he literally cannot use, but most importantly: a king-sized bed. Then he leaves him to it.

Dean doesn’t unpack. He toes his shoes off, puts his phone to charge, and lies himself, face-down, on the bed.

When he wakes up, it’s dark outside. According to his watch, it’s mid-afternoon in Nebraska. He turns on the lights in the room, which just casts long shadows across the mass of empty floor. In the en-suite, he washes his face and neck, and drinks water from the tap, avoiding his own eyes in the mirror. He feels jittery and out of place, like it’s too quiet, or he’s being too loud.

For a moment, he sits on the edge of the bed, listening to the wind along the stone walls. Then he puts his shoes on.

The corridors look different at night. He has to feel himself forward with a hand against a wall, and the floorboards creak loudly under him. The staircase seems longer, the ceilings higher.

He enters the garage from the west end of the house. Here, the fluorescent light flick on strong and bright, lighting the rows of cars and shelves of tools in clear detail. Dean breathes out.

At the end, by the four post car lift, sits the Impala.

“Okay, baby girl,” he says softly, breaking the silence, “let’s get you up and running again.”

He gets to work.


	2. Chapter 2

**99 DAYS**

In the morning, Talbot finds his feet sticking out from under the car, moving to an imaginary beat. Dean hears him coming, but doesn’t stop working.

"Hey, Jimmy, that you? Great, I've been working for a while now and this is definitely do-able but you don't have half the parts I'm going to need here. Unless you have another storage somewhere? In any case I'm going to have to toss about 50 percent of the engine, and there is no way in hell I'm using anything but original parts, which I'm willing to bet you don't have lying around. Do you have some contacts in the area I could–“

“Nope,” Talbot says loudly.

“What? Come on, you didn’t hire me to turn her into some half-assed piece of–“

“Nope,” Talbot says again, even louder, “nope, nope, nope.” He takes a firm grasp of Dean’s ankles and pulls him out from under the car.

“Hey,” Dean complains. For an older guy, he is surprisingly strong.

"You are not going to be stuck in the garage all day, you are coming to eat breakfast, and you are going to enjoy it. Eames made eggs.”

“But–"

" _Nope_." He starts pushing Dean out of the room, grabbing the tools out of his hands and throwing them behind himself to lie discarded on the floor.

“Jimmy–"

“Breakfast!"

And that’s that.

Dean sits, very aware that he hasn’t changed out of the clothes he slept in, at the end of a table that could seat fifty, being served plates upon plates of bacon, french toast, and eggs cooked a hundred ways to Sunday.

“If there’s one thing Brits got right,” Talbot is telling him, mouth full, “it’s breakfast.” As Eames approaches holding a ceramic pot, Talbot leans close to him and mutters, eyes suddenly wide, “don’t say anything about the tea.”

Before Dean can ask, he has been poured a cup of tea. When he opens his mouth to ask for coffee, Talbot shakes his head, violently, so he shuts his mouth and drinks it.

––––

Under his hands, the Impala disassembles piece by piece. This car was once his house, his bed, his mother and his friend. Every piece of metal he moves, he knows: the soft and the sharp edges. And as she shrinks, so does he, as if it is his own skin he is peeling off, himself he is baring to the world. The beers he brought with him run dry quickly, his eyes do not.

He works until he can’t stand to look at her anymore, this misshapen skeleton of all he used to know.

Instead, he sorts through all the junk he can find, putting anything useful in one pile, the rest in another. He ends up with one very big pile and one very small one. Since his life is a cruel comedy, the piles are not in his favour.

As he’s lugging a piece of scrap metal across the floor, there is a knock on the door. Eames could not look more out of place standing among the tires and the tools if he’d been a pig in a production of Hamlet. Or, you know, a butler in a garage, carrying a tea-tray.

“I thought sir might like a cup of tea,” he said, sounding more stilted than drawling.

Dean smacked his dry lips. His throat and head are fuzzy from the beer.

“That doesn’t sound half-bad, actually,” he says, and takes it. The cup is warm against his hand, the tea soft as silk against his throat. At his pleased noise, Eames almost, almost, smiles a little. He doesn’t say anything about Dean’s red eyes.

“You know what, Eames, you’re pretty cool,” Dean says, and drinks his tea.

––––

**95 DAYS**

Dean is sick of tea. He is sick and tired of tea. He is nauseous and exhausted by the thought of it. First of all, it’s not really a drink. It’s almost water but also really, really not. It has caffeine, but not actually enough to make a difference. It’s a little like eating leaves but more like drinking something that tries to taste like leaves. Secondly, it’s _not even a drink_. It doesn’t make you un-thirsty, it doesn’t speed you up or slow you down, doesn’t make women hotter than they are. It has, literally, no purpose.

When he tries to explain this to Eames, however, he gets such a vicious yet undoubtedly polite dressing down he doesn’t know how to recover from it.

He’s also sure the tea is tasting more and more disgusting since they had that talk. He’s kind of sick of Eames too. He’s just so… British.

Dean is not British. He is _American_. He needs coffee.

“I need coffee,” he says.

“Whatever you say, sir,” Eames responds, still pouring tea.

“Coffee, Eames. Black liquid. Makes your brain go fast? Tastes like dirt but in a good way?”

Nothing. He keeps pouring tea.

“Often taken with cream and sugar? At this point preferably injected straight into my veins?”

“Indeed, sir,” Eames says, and that cup has to be full by now, but Eames just keeps pouring.

“Tea doesn’t cut it for me, Eames. It’s too healthy. I’ve been drinking it for a week and I’m feeling all,” he waves his wrench in a haphazard manner in front of his chest, “I don’t know, clean? You gotta help me out.”

Eames hands him the cup.

“Right,” Dean says. “I’m going out, don’t let Talbot touch the car.” He hands the cup back. Eames looks so affronted by this that Dean, if he weren’t suffering from severe caffeine withdrawal, might have felt bad. Instead, he grabs the keys to a ’62 Imperial Crown off the wall, presses the button to open the garage, and gets the hell out of there.

He follows the signs towards Leatherhead. The Chrysler’s gear shift sticks in two places, which Dean makes a note to fix at some point. He doesn’t notice he’s driving on the wrong side of the road until he meets a Honda driving the other way. He swears loudly to himself, waving apologetically out the window. Sam would kill him if he were here.

It’s a ten minute drive until he starts closing in on the Leatherhead town centre. It’s a small, old little town. Cute, almost. He parks the car on the side of a street and marches up and down streets until he finds a little café, nestled between a candy shop and a travel agency. He frowns up at the name of the business, “Taste Buds”. It seems like a new low. Then he marches inside.

“Who do I have to sell my soul to for a cup of coffee?” He asks, a bit loudly.

A woman in an apron by the register jumps and spills hot water on her hand. She shouts, “ah, bollocks!” and sticks her hand under the tap. There’s only a few customers, sitting in armchairs around small tables. They all turn to stare at him. Dean can feel his face growing warm.

A man comes out of a swinging door behind the counter, wiping his hands on a towel, looking calm but like he hasn’t slept well lately.

“Meg, please don’t swear,” he says. His voice is low and gruff and definitely, decidedly, American. The woman glares at him.

“You’re American?” Dean asks, for a moment completely distracted from his coffee quest.

The man gives him a long look. “If you want to order something, you can stand in line like everyone else–”

“No, but you’re American?”

He’s getting frowned at now. “Yes…” The man says, almost as a question.

Dean heads to the counter, “Thank god, you’ll understand. They’re feeding me nothing but tea, I’m going crazy. You’ll have some real coffee, right?”

The guy looks at him with narrowed eyes. “If you have a seat, I will bring you a cup of coffee–“

“ _American coffee_ –“

“–American coffee as soon as I have a moment.”

Dean takes a deep breath. “Thank you,” he says. The girl with her hand under the tap gives him an odd look.

He sits in the nearest empty chair and pulls out his phone to text Sam.

**Dean:** "sitting in a coffee shop. happy now?”

 **Sam:** "\ o /"

He’s trying to figure out what that means when a large mug of coffee is set down in front of him.

“Dude,” he says, “thank you so much, you have no idea.”

The guy doesn’t say anything, just turns and starts walking back to the kitchen.

“Hey,” Dean stops him, “this is really fucking good, what did you put in it?”

He gets a blank look in response. “Coffee.”

“Right, well.” Dean clears his throat. “Sorry about the shouting.”

“We get all sorts around here,” the guy says, “even shouty mechanics.” Dean looks down at himself, noting the fresh oil stains and his dirty fingernails. “We don’t have a dress code,” the guy adds, and walks away.

“Right,” Dean mutters to himself, feeling stupid.

His phone vibrates on the table.

**Sam:** “Make friends!”

 **Dean** : “i have friends”

 **Sam** : “LOL”

––––

**88 DAYS**

Eames doesn’t talk to him for a week. When Talbot finds out, he actually smacks Dean over the head.

“I told you not to say anything about the tea,” he says, “now I’m gonna have to deal with that!”

He’s come to drag Dean away from the Impala again, sitting them both down in the basement and pouring a hefty amount of scotch into Dean’s glass.

“How was I supposed to know he’d take it so personally?” Dean asks, rubbing the back of his head. “I needed coffee. I _like_ coffee. Don’t tell me you never sneak off for a cup every once in a while.”

“I would _never,_ ” Talbot says, sneaking a glance over his shoulder, “and I definitely wouldn’t _tell Eames_.”

“Can I go back to work now?” Dean says.

“Of course not, we’re going golfing.”

They go golfing. It’s the worst afternoon Dean has had in his entire life.

––––

He learns some things over subsequent visits to Taste Buds. First: don’t flirt with Meg the waitress, it’s a bad idea. Second, the American’s name is Castiel. He’s not told that, he just reads the name tag and no one corrects him when he starts using it. Thirdly, a guy named Gabriel owns the candy store next door. He keeps coming over to bother Castiel. Dean isn’t sure he likes Gabriel very much. He finds him unnerving, like if you turned your back for a second he might steal your wallet, or give you a wedgie.

He also learns that Castiel doesn’t work on Wednesdays. He learns that from the horrible cup of coffee Meg makes him. He can’t be sure if she’d done something to it. Where would she get cat piss? Still, he decides he can do without coffee on Wednesdays.

Watching the staff and patrons of Taste Buds is a small change of pace, a nice sometime break from the manor. Talbot, much like Sam, thinks he doesn’t get out enough, and has taken it upon himself to drag Dean away from work if he thinks he’s been down there for too long. Regular trips into town allows Dean to work the rest of the day, uninterrupted. The longer he stays, the more uninterrupted work hours he gets.

It turns out sitting in a café for two hours gets boring very quickly.

His fifth trip, he tries to strike up a conversation. It doesn’t go very well.

“So, your name, where did you get that?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your name?”

“My name?”

“Yeah, Castiel?”

“My parents.”

“Right, but I mean– and you’re gone.”

It could really only get better from there.

Today, he’s the only customer. He has been watching an old lady through the window, slowly making her way down the street with a walker. A bird flies down and sits in front of her on the sidewalk, then flies away again. The old lady keeps walking.

“I have a question,” he says, when Castiel is refilling his cup. “Does nothing ever happen here? At all?”

Castiel thinks about it for a second. “We get deliveries on Mondays,” he says in a slow, serious voice.

“I meant in this town.”

“Gabriel’s shop gets deliveries on alternate Tuesdays.”

Dean feels mean for wanting to laugh, so he doesn’t. When Castiel walks back to the kitchen, Dean lets his eyes linger just for a second. It’s a decent view.

“Cas says you can use the computer in the corner,” Meg says to him a little later, when he’s paying for his coffee.

“Really?”

“For the cheap price of your soul.”

Flirting with her was a big mistake.

He stops by the door and turns around. “Cas?” He asks.

Meg shrugs, “yeah, Cas.”

Dean files that away for later.

––––

**84 DAYS**

He’s drunk. He’s very, very drunk. He’s not crying, he refuses to, he won’t.

He drank until he was dizzy and then he kept drinking. Now he’s drunk.

“Dean?”

He doesn’t remember calling Sam. He remembers thinking about Sam, remembers aching with the memory of Sam’s tiny hand in his, but not picking his phone up and calling him. Apparently he had.

This is his life now. Sitting, shit-faced, in the cellar of a mansion, because he can’t do his job anymore when his chest feels like it’s going to cave in.

“Dean, why are you laughing?”

With effort, he wheezes, “I think I got lost.”

“What?”

“In the wine-cellar.” He throws his free arm out in a wide gesture, “I don’t know the way out!”

“What’s wrong, Dean?”

“What are you talking about, I’m on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend–“

“Dean, please.” He just sounds sad, now. Dean stops laughing.

“Remember– Remember when we lived in Oregon for a bit? You were nine, I think.” His throat was full of the words he wasn’t saying. “We’d been in the car for weeks–“ because John hadn’t wanted to stop, “and you were really bored and cranky, and you shoved that army man in the ashtray? Remember that? We tried to get it out before he noticed but every time it moved it would scratch the metal–“ Dean stops to breathe.

“Yeah, I remember that.”

Dean puts a shaking hand to his face. “He was so mad.”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Dean, what’s this about?”

“It’s still there,” he says, choking on it, blinking up at the ceiling. “It’s still fucking there.”

“Oh.”

––––

**80 DAYS**

“I need these parts, Jimmy.”

Dean shakes the notebook in front of his face. The Impala is progressing, but he is quickly running out of things he can fix without supplies. He needs parts for the engine, the hydraulics system, the electrical. He needs connections, dealers. He needs, at the very least, a junk yard. He _needs_ original parts.

“Sure,” Talbot says, not looking up from his laptop. His foot is still in the cast and put high on a footrest and an extra pillow. “Put it over there, I’ll take a look at it.”

“When?”

“Hm?”

“When are you gonna look at it?”

Talbot shrugs, “When I have time, kid.”

“That’s just not good enough,” he says, “I’m here to do a job, and if you’re not gonna let me do it, then we’re gonna have a problem–“

Talbot groans, and starts digging around in his pockets. He hands Dean a shiny, black credit card. “Here,” he says, “get anything you need.”

Dean takes it, peering down at it suspiciously.

“You’re just gonna give this to me?”

“Kid,” Talbot says, still not looking at him, “you would have to buy so much cocaine for me to even notice the money missing.”

So Dean spends the day at Taste Buds, slowly and painstakingly typing keywords into the computer in the corner, trying to find anyone in Surrey that could possibly have parts from a '67 4-barrel, V8 engine.

When he logs into his email to contact some leads, he has three unread messages in his inbox.

From two weeks ago, Charlie Bradbury, subject: “have you seen this? priceless”

From ten days ago, Charlie Bradbury, subject: “Just talked to your brother…”

From two days ago, Charlie Bradbury, subject: “BRO WTF”

He winces.

“How is it going?” Cas asks.

Dean jumps, “jeez, man, walk a bit louder, please,” he says and quickly closes the email-tab.

Cas refills his cup, wordlessly. Then he stands there, over Dean’s shoulder, waiting.

“Oh, uh,” Dean says, “It’s going okay. Believe it or not, this place isn’t a mechanic’s dream, but I think I have some leads.

Cas nods, solemnly. “Good luck,” he says, and walks away.

His phone buzzes.

**Sam:** “How’s the car? Talbot helping yet?”

 **Dean** : “ok. no, but I’m looking for parts myself now.”

 **Sam:** “Cool! Don’t get midsomer murdered!”

Dean logs onto his email again, and stares at the neat little row of unread emails. He clicks on “new email” and types in the email address of a Steven Hardy from Andover who’s recently been active on a forum about American muscle cars.

A little later, Cas comes and refills his cup again.

–––––

**79 DAYS**

Looking back over his actions the last few hours, Dean feels assured that this cannot be blamed on his poor map-reading skills. He decides to blame it on the English countryside, and road signs, and the car, and England, and the rain.

He peers up at the sign, and back down at the map. He’s leaning over it to protect it from the downpour, which just means rain is running in rivers onto it from his hair and neck and nose. The text of the map is starting to blur. It could be saying anything, but Dean is sure it doesn’t match what’s on the road sign.

A sheep bleats on his right. He tells it to fuck off.

He goes back to the car. The windshield wipers are going furiously fast, looking desperate yet failing miserably at keeping the rain off the glass.

For a year, Sam has tried to get him to buy an iPhone. Or, “if you don’t want to conform to societal pressure, some other brand, just please join us in this century.” Dean doesn’t want a smartphone. He wants readable maps, not built in GPS-systems that probably tracks him wherever he goes.

He turns the car around and heads back the way he came.

Three hours later, he’s standing on the welcome mat of Taste Buds, which he hasn’t realised until now reads “oh no, it’s you again”. It seems like a strange thing to write on a welcome mat. Half-heartedly, he tries to wipe his feet on it, but it doesn’t make him any drier.

He looks up when Cas drapes a blanket over his shoulders and gently steers him towards the kitchen door.

“Your welcome mat is stupid,” he tells him, through chattering teeth.

“I am making you some soup,” Cas tells him.

The café is empty except for them, and Cas’s hands feel warm and firm on his upper arms, far warmer than the blanket.

He gets placed on a stool by the island in the modest little stainless steel kitchen. Cas hands him a towel, which he uses to dry his face and scrub at his hair. When he looks up, Cas is watching him. Then he turns around and pulls a put out of a cabinet.

“You’re not actually making me soup, are you?”

“I’m making you soup. You’re shaking.”

Cas makes him soup. It’s warm and dry in the kitchen, especially after he peels his leather jacket off his skin and wraps another blanket around his torso, and once the smell of potato and leek soup starts filling the air.

“What about customers?” Dean asks.

“No one is out in this weather,” Cas responds.

“Except us,” Dean says.

Cas looks at him over his shoulder, something like a smile tugging at him, and Dean wants to look away immediately.

“Yes, except us.”

He pours soup for Dean, and for himself, and sits down opposite him.

“Were you pushed in a lake?” he asks, mildly.

“Uh, no,” Dean said, “I got caught in the rain.”

Cas stares at him.

“For about an hour.”

Cas narrows his eyes.

“I got lost and walked in the rain for two and a half hours,” Dean groans, “but I blame the map.”

Cas just nods. “Where were you going, in the rain, for two and a half hours?”

“I’m here to fix a car for Jimmy Talbot, you know him?”

“The wealthy American who bought a previously historically protected manor a few miles from here? Yes, I know of him.”

Dean eats some soup. “Oh my god,” he says, and eats some more. “What did you put in this, crack?”

“The secret is love,” Cas says.

Dean pauses and looks at him for any sign that it was a joke and it would be okay to laugh. His face is completely blank.

“Right,” he says, “so I have to replace a lot of parts, and it’s gotta be original. Talbot’s being really unhelpful, but I found this guy over in Andover? He said he had a bunch of stuff I could look at. Except I guess I… kind of didn’t find him. I don’t think he gave me a real address.”

“I know Andover,” Cas says, looking somewhere over Dean’s left shoulder. “I might be able to help.”


End file.
